So Much of It
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: An A-Team tribute to the Golden Age of Comedy, as orchestrated by Hannibal Smith.
1. Chapter 1

So Much of It

_"Thanks for all the joy you've given us, you will always be our superstars."_ Aqua - "Back to the 80's"

5:30 A.M., the sky was already blue, the sun was already up and shining, and everything was oddly silent. Hannibal Smith stood in the middle of the lot and looked up to the sky. His eyes moved one way, then another, as if trying to catch a glimpse of something up above, but there was nothing, even the birds were nowhere to be found in that vast sky this morning. It was unreal how quiet everything was, not a sound to be heard on land or up in the air, like everything was dead, or at least put on pause, frozen in time.

It was only temporary. Everything was temporary. All of life was only temporary, but this moment right here, it was especially only temporary. Before long this place would be full of noise as everything was set up. This was the lot where the latest Aquamaniac movie was shooting, this was where Hannibal would once more climb into his giant rubber monster suit and step out into the water and sink below the surface, hoping his lungs didn't explode before his cue, and then slowly rise up and come out of the water and maul some pretty girl on the beach, _again_.

This was the face of Hollywood today, or one of them anyway. Cheap B-movies were just that, a dime a dozen, cheap and easy and quick to make, cheap and easy and quick to edit, finalize, ship out, and nobody got rich doing them but they pulled in a profit bigger than the budget spent on making them, so the cycle repeated until you had 20 movies in the same series and they were all more or less the same.

The other side of the coin was you spent tens of millions of dollars on a big budget movie and drew in the top growing household name actors that everybody knew and everybody flocked to see, put them in some kind of plot just so long as it ran 90 minutes or two hours, and in turn pulled in tens of millions more than you put into that. That was the business, that was the industry, people wanted to see movies, and they would see movies, whatever kind of movies they were didn't matter much, as long as they were something to watch there would always be an audience willing to come see them.

This was a business Hannibal knew very well, it was an industry he'd grown up in and around. He grew up in California, he spent much of his life before the Army in Los Angeles, he grew up around Hollywood, he'd gone to the movies every week just like every other kid his age; sometimes several times a week, usually at the expense of the truant officers who tried to chase him down and catch him, and always to no avail. He could still feel the strain from watching so wide-eyed at famous movie monsters of the day: Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Invisible Man…he also remembered all the sequels that were to follow, Dracula's son and daughter, the bride and son of Frankenstein, the Werewolf of London, and the She-Wolf of London, the Mummy's hand, his tomb, his ghost, his curse…Kharis was the original zombie, no, the original Jason Vorhees, no matter what you did to him, you couldn't kill him, only get rid of him for one picture and then he'd be back, just as strong and deadly as before. And you bought it every time, no matter how many movies they did, all of them were just as terrifying as the one before.

Fast paced action also ran rampant in many of the films he saw growing up, and he probably saw as many full length action movies as he did the weekly cliffhanger serials. Tarzan and Dick Tracy and Ace Drummond, The Whispering Shadow, John Wayne in the non-western Hurricane Express, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and the infamous Perils of Pauline, had all been a weekly part of his life growing up, followed in years to come by Captain Midnight, Batman and Robin, Zorro, The Phantom, The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Superman, the Shadow, and countless others. The kids of today had no idea what it was like; you spent your formative years only seeing these heroes in comic strips or reading about them in books or hearing them on the radio, and then all of a sudden there they were on the big screen for the first time, they became _real_ in that instant that they popped out during the credits in glorious black and white, just as lifelike as the oh too real news reels that ran before every feature film. Youth today had no idea how any of it was, how good _it_ was, or how good _they_ had it that they came into the world seeing the figures that would someday become their heroes, already plastered all over every TV screen, movie billboard, T-shirt, everything.

Commercialism of a hero franchise wasn't anything new but it had been _after_ his time. In his day you had the radio programs you listened to every night, you had the comics that you read and re-read a hundred times waiting for the new ones to come out, and you had those movies, those once in a lifetime opportunities to go and see your heroes for 20 minutes every week, and you walked away from it with only the memories, and they were enough.

There had also been much to say for the silent films from before his time. He'd had the privilege of seeing them run again in the movie houses when he was growing up, and he was sure he had been just as mesmerized as the original audiences had been. He'd been scared senseless by the great unmasking of the Phantom of the Opera, he didn't sleep for a week after seeing Nosferatu and his extensive shadow, during a run of Roland West's original adaption for The Bat, he spent most of the movie on the edge of the seat in front of him and practically on the head of the man sitting in it. The Phantom Carriage drove him to the floor of his row and he spent half the film watching through his fingers. He'd bitten his nails down to practically nubs watching Lon Chaney as Alonzo the Armless, a killer in hiding in a circus, ever with the suspense that somebody would discover his secret that he had killed to protect.

Also today, few people knew that famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini had had a brief career as an actor; but Hannibal had seen almost every film the man had done, from the serial The Master Mystery to The Man from Beyond where he played a man frozen for 100 years, to Haldane of the Secret Service, a film Houdini had also directed. Today the films were probably lost or destroyed, one of Hollywood's many casualties to fire and decay, but he still remembered the action and the thrill of it all. For no more than that man had graced the silver screen, it had been time well spent towards entertaining the masses.

Pearl White and Ruth Roland, the two queens of the action cliffhangers in the 1910s had been among his first boyhood crushes, not just because they were pretty, but because of the assertive, adventurous characters they played. Mary Pickford might have been America's Sweetheart, but she was too much angel food cake for his liking. Louise Brooks, in that same era she seemed to be at the top of the game but in the years to come, she got no respect and no love, and though he'd never gotten to meet her when he was a younger man haunting Hollywood in his spare time, he always felt sorry for her. The more time passed, the harder it was not to feel sorry for everybody. Pearl and Ruth had both died young, Pearl's downward spiral had been the cost of her work in the industry, the cost of being a stunt woman in a time before actors were heavily insured and protected by every union and organization known to man. Clara Bow, in her heyday she was the IT girl, the public loved her but Hollywood shunned her because she could admit she came from poverty and from nothing, and she didn't pretend to hobnob with the snobs, she managed to keep it real and she too paid a price for it. Most of her legacy she'd left behind was gone now, most of her films were feared to be destroyed or lost forever, so about the only thing the future generations would know her for would be the IT girl and nothing else, lest her scandals didn't stand the test of time in Hollywood gossip. What a terrible way to go down in history, only one accomplishment remembered out of many.

They'd all graced the screen in a time where nobody got to hear any of them utter a single word, and it didn't matter, their beauty and their ability as believable characters in their films spoke volumes instead. They made it work for them and it _had_ worked at the time, and in the long run of the industry of Hollywood, it paid off in the end. Even today, 60 years after their prime, people still remembered them, some more fondly than others.

As a boy, Hannibal had attended hundreds of movies, more than his middle aged brain could ever hope to remember. And every single one of them had had a lasting impression on him. But the ones he would always remember most of all, and the fondest of them all…were the comedies.

The strange thing about it all was, it wasn't even something that he'd thought about for a good long while, years, how many he couldn't even begin to guess. And he probably would've gone through the rest of his life never really giving it another thought, if it hadn't been for what happened two weeks ago.

The plan had gone off without a hitch, as usual, Hannibal had been able to map out and anticipate every single detail…except his misjudged leap off a moving train and the sickening CRUNCH his ankle made when he landed on it. Usually anytime he got injured during the line of duty, the only sound they ever got out of him were a few low grunts, this time he lay curled on his side sounding like a sick cow until the others caught up with him. When the spots and bright colors left his vision, he'd been able to hop to his feet but past that, it was obvious walking wasn't going to go over well, never mind running if they had to. So, they'd loaded up the van and found a small town doctor at his home to see how bad the damage was. By the time they got Hannibal on the table for the doctor to examine him, his ankle was already the size of a grapefruit and it was obvious he'd never be able to get his boots back on.

"You wrenched it good," the doctor told him, "You would've been better off flat out breaking it."

"Yeouch!" Hannibal replied when the doctor touched his ankle, "Why's that?"

"We can do something with a break, _this_ is going to have to heal on its own."

"Oh swell," he said unenthusiastically, "Let me guess, just go home, put some ice on it, keep it elevated, take it easy, that kind of stuff?"

"Pretty much," the doctor replied.

"I didn't need you for _that_, pal," Hannibal told him.

The doctor got him fitted with a compression bandage to help reduce the swelling and gave him some painkillers to take when and if necessary and sent them on their way.

* * *

It wasn't like none of them had ever been tripped up by an unforeseen injury before, but the others were not used to Hannibal being the recipient of said injuries, especially when it meant he wouldn't be able to run or go with them. And it was debated if Hannibal would even be safe in his apartment alone lest Lynch come sniffing around. Murdock had volunteered to stay with Hannibal incase he needed any help, Hannibal had been touched by Murdock's offer but insisted he would be fine on his own. Besides, he'd added, he couldn't possibly rob Face of a whole weekend with Murdock at the penthouse he was currently scamming. And ooh Face had had a killer glare for him when he said that.

Once back at his apartment, he resolved himself to staying on the couch until further notice. It was the first time in weeks that he'd actually gotten a chance to see what was on TV at night now. Par for the expected course, most of it wasn't anything worth watching, and the rest was more of the same. Then he turned to another channel and stopped when he saw something familiar. A black and white film with lively music playing to match the fast paced sped up events of the film. Apparently he'd lucked out and stumbled into the middle of a Robert Youngson marathon from the 60's, and he spent the next three hours watching commentated highlights of comedies from the silent era between the mid 1910s to the early 1920s. By the end of the second documentary, he didn't even remember that his ankle had been throbbing, he'd laughed until he couldn't breathe, then until he started choking, and then finally he laughed until he had tears running from his eyes. All those old familiar friends that he'd grown up on, and hadn't seen for many years, it was just like those 40 years had never passed.

That, however, had merely been the start of things. The next night he turned back to the same channel and saw it was an all night silent comedy marathon. Six hours of shorts starring Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, the classic three where Hollywood had been concerned for close to 60 years. Therein lay the problem though; brilliant though they were, they had come to overshadow all the others, and now they were about the only ones remembered by time. Fortunately the TV station had other plans. Every night that week there was a marathon: Mack Sennett's comedies with Mabel Normand and 'Fatty' Arbuckle, Ben Turpin, the Keystone Cops; then a night of shorts starring both Buster Keaton and 'Fatty' Arbuckle together, essentially the only time in Buster's whole career that he was caught on camera smiling and laughing at _anything_. Then a night of Hal Roach's endless comedies with Laurel and Hardy, also some with Charley Chase, Snub Pollard, and Edgar Kennedy – the man who perfected the 'slow burn', which carried over well into his later years of being hassled by the Marx Brothers in their films.

Then a night of full length films by the Great Stoneface, Buster Keaton in all his glory in 'The General', 'Our Hospitality', 'The Navigator', 'The Cameraman', or as Hannibal always referred to it, 'the beginning of the end'. Then a night of Chaplin's full movies, from early on and very zany with 'Tillie's Punctured Romance', to the slightly more serious 'The Kid' and to the perfectly half and half 'The Gold Rush', to the much more melancholic but still comedic 'Modern Times', a semi-silent film when Hollywood had already plunged head-on into the sound era. He watched and he remembered and he tried to think when the last time was any of these had been shown, to anybody? Many of them, he would've guessed it had been 30 years since he'd last seen them, and for all that he hadn't missed a step, he still remembered all the vital parts of every film.

By the end of the week, his ankle had gone down to close its normal size and Hannibal was able to do more than just get up and hobble around from room to room and back to the couch, but he still wasn't in any condition to run from anybody if need be, go on a dangerous mission, or even run through his own obstacle course. He put on a pair of sneakers that he was able to loosen one up as far as it would go and still stay on, and lightly walked out of his apartment and headed down to the local movie theater. He spent each night going to a different latest hit 'comedy' film that had come out that year. As a kid he was constantly scrambling to swipe up dimes and nickels so he could pay his way into a movie on the days he cut school, now a ticket to an evening feature cost $4, not counting concessions. Talk about inflation.

He couldn't even remember half of the names of the movies he went to, sometimes he sat through and endured to the end to see if it was worth his time and money. A couple other times he walked out because he was sure it could only get worse. One time he'd fallen asleep halfway through the movie, and only woke up when the usher was shaking him because they had to clear everyone out and clean up for the next showing.

"I must've come into the wrong room," Hannibal had said as he rubbed his eyes and stood up, "I thought this was supposed to be a _comedy_. A film that gets two chuckles out of you over a course of two hours does _not_ a comedy make."

Disappointed in the industry he used to love so much, Hannibal left the theater and caught a cab back to his apartment complex, and spent the rest of the night watching old movies on his TV.

* * *

Sound comedy was a different type of comedy than the silent films had, different, but still good, usually. Of course every era of film had its share of stinkers, but Hannibal seemed to recall there being so much fewer stinkers in his day. Nostalgia was nine tenths of the law of human memory, but even nostalgia only went so far, a movie was either good or it wasn't. From the 30s to the 50s and even then into the 60s the 3 Stooges entertained the masses. Yes, they were funny, Hannibal would admit that. But they weren't original. He was one of the few people old enough to acknowledge that. Most of their gags that people laughed at had already been done before, years before back in the silent era.

Pies being thrown in people's faces, or rather shoved, the first rule of a good pie fight, you _never_ throw a pie, you get right up to the person and _shove_ it directly into their face, was nothing new. Even when the 3 Stooges did it, it was nothing new. That went back to Ben Turpin in 1909, and then in Mack Sennett's films of the 1910s, but they didn't really become an epic part of comedy until later on. Laurel and Hardy were noted for having the biggest pie fight of the time in their film 'The Battle of the Century', 3,000 pies used by everybody thrown at everybody, a whole bakery's inventory for a single day. That was the charm of their films, sometimes the hijinks were contagious, sometimes everyone else just stood around and watched while Stan and Ollie destroyed things for whatever reason. But, as Hannibal recalled, the last great pie fight used in a film was in 'The Great Race', and that was 20 years ago.

Many things the 3 Stooges did that kept audiences laughing from that day to this, were not their own innovations. Buster Keaton had originated Curly's 'Disorder in the Court' antics in a little forgotten film called 'Sidewalks of New York', forgotten largely because it was a sound picture, and after Buster's career had ended, nobody was interested in the great Stone Face once he started talking. He had also originated the idea of either needing a longer arm or a shorter wall 25 years before the 3 Stooges tried it to retrieve a television knob while installing a set. Even that live oyster in the soup that snapped, that also went back to the silent era. Even they weren't immune to being copied. All those sound effects that really sealed their humor, the same trick was always used overseas in the 'Old Mother Riley' movies years later, kooky sound effects for head bops, nose twists, face slaps, the works. And it always worked, because people loved slapstick humor, they especially loved an amplified variety of slapstick humor. That was why silent films generally went over better with newer audiences when they had little sound effects of their own added to them.

Who were the actors these days? He hardly knew them now, so many just seemed to be clones of each other. Of course, it was asinine to assume one actor could replace another or become a duplicate of that person, case in point there would never be another Shirley Temple and everybody knew it, and yet nobody could shut up about it; though that one was no skin off his nose, if Mary Pickford was angel food cake, where Hannibal was concerned growing up, Shirley Temple was raw cane sugar and would give you pure cavities by comparison. But who was out there today, who could compare with, say, Boris Karloff? Christopher Lee's Dracula didn't hold a candle to Bela Lugosi's adaptation, only buckets of dripping blood. The newer Mummy and Frankenstein movies didn't set out to tell a love story around the horror, they just horrified and sickened audiences, and somehow they became the bigger hits for it, what was wrong with this picture?

Another that he remembered quite well that had never and could never be replaced or even attempted, the Dead End Kids, who then became the East Side Kids, who later on became The Bowery Boys. When he was a kid, they were the Dead End Kids, very serious, very dramatic, very dark, then they gently segued into the more comical but still serious and dramatic East Side Kids, and then when he was grown up, before and while he was in Korea, they went all the way to screwball. By that final run around the bend, they were shooting movies in 6 days a piece, churning them out for every Saturday morning crowd, not necessarily a way to get rich, but definitely famous, the names and faces they wouldn't forget, and he wouldn't forget, though by now many had. In today's world, they were forgettable, because they were expendable and disposable, because though they were a gang made up of bumbling boobs always looking for fights, they were all heart; in the beginning they weren't there just to bust guts, they were there to tell a story, in contrast to today when movies were made for a big opening box office payday. Oh how the mighty had fallen.

Was there anyone out there now who could move audiences like Charlie Chaplin had in his wordless social commentary about society cogs in a machine, or in his final speech as the Great Dictator? Was there any actor alive today willing to take the kinds of risks not seen since the likes of Buster Keaton, Pearl White, or Al St. John? No. Maybe the actors today were smarter for it, but they weren't more entertaining for it, unfortunately it was all the more entertaining when it really was a matter of 'one wrong move, and you're history'.

Al St. John…now there was another guy who got no love and no respect anymore. Most people didn't even know who that was, and those who did, few knew him outside of his work in his uncle 'Fatty's' shorts, and the _rest_ had no respect for his work there either. Hollywood was a cruel place, you outlive your prime, and unless you find some way to be remembered as spectacular, you're thrown by the wayside and forgotten, your legacy tramped on and buried like a dead frog in a kid's garden. What a world.

Few items from his life before Vietnam and the A-Team still survived, like many of Hollywood's old films, his belongings had been lost to time, and eventual decay. There was something that remained though. Hell, if Face could have a scrapbook of the Dick Tracy texts, why not? Hannibal dug out the old book he'd put together as a kid with pictures he'd ripped and cut out of his mother's star magazines and off of posters and lobby cards around the city, of his favorite film stars. Seeing the black and white photos from so long ago, mentally recounting the fate of each and every one of them, for a moment he flashed on the end report of the 'Hindenburg' movie, except the Hindenburg had survivors, there were few to be had here: Charlie Chaplin – dead; Harold Lloyd – dead; Buster Keaton – dead; Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle – dead; Stan Laurel – dead; Oliver Hardy – dead; Will Rogers – dead; Charles Parrott – AKA Charley Chase – dead; cross-eyed Ben Turpin – dead; Douglas Fairbanks – dead; Clara Bow – dead; Lou Costello – dead; Moe, Shemp and Curly Howard – dead, Gloria Swanson – _just_ dead; Leo Gorcey – dead; Lillian Gish – survived; Louise Brooks – survived; Huntz Hall – survived.

And that wasn't enough, as he flipped through the pages, Hannibal found himself recalling the tragic aspects of their lives. Roscoe Arbuckle – arrest for rape and murder, 2 hung juries, 1 acquittal, career ruined, dead at 46 just when he planned a comeback. Mabel Normand, Roscoe's leading lady, dead at 38 from tuberculosis. Charlie Chaplin, exiled out of the country for politics, officially because of public disagreement with his keeping such young wives. Buster Keaton, loss of creative independence by MGM, run into bankruptcy by ex-wife, custody of children _lost_ to ex-wife, claims of kidnapping of said children _by_ ex-wife, alcoholism, rehab, escape from rehab, recovery, died of lung cancer. Clara Bow, born and raised into poverty by mentally ill mother who tried to kill her in her sleep, resulting in lifelong bouts with insomnia, scandals about alleged affairs, institutionalized, early onset of possibly hereditary mental illness, dead at 60. Curly Howard, stroke, multiple strokes, failing health, dead at 48. Shemp Howard, slumped over smoking in a cab, dead at 60 from a heart attack. Lou Costello, dead just shy of 53, heart attack.

Hannibal slammed the scrapbook shut and tossed it onto the coffee table. Why was it the people who provided the most services for the world had some of the worst lives and the most miserable and premature endings? He looked at the album he'd thrown on the table, didn't pick it back up, just looked at it.

It seemed a conflict of interests that society put more emphasis on entertainers than the likes of say, doctors, judges, policemen, etc, well, there was a reason for that. Doctors were no longer seen as the saints in surgical garbs they once were, nor should they ever have been, because right from the start there were always plenty of quacks who didn't know what they were doing, plenty others who performed drunk on the job. There was seldom a person alive who hadn't had or didn't know somebody who'd had a bad run-in with law enforcement where the law was not on the side of right. Judges, more of the same, for the right amount you could buy your way out of anything. The contributions of the good were sorely outweighed by the misconduct of the bad, after a while it became obvious why nobody believed in the good of those rare few in the fields. But no matter who you were, where you were, where you came from, what kind of life you led, you went to the movies, you saw somebody on the screen who absolutely sparkled and was absolutely riveting, and for a couple hours, the outside world and all the problems it gave you were forgotten. You left the theater with a little more hope for humanity than you'd had going in. Or at least you _used_ to. Anybody who could do that, who could have that kind of effect, on _millions_ of people, that was a truly remarkable person, especially given the price they had to pay to do that, in which they sacrificed everything, including their privacy, to entertain the masses.

Hannibal found his hand reaching out to the book again, he picked it up and flipped through the pages. Aha, there she was. America's original Sweetheart, Mary Pickford, where he was underwhelmed by her screen presence as a child, once he was grown up, and now in his older years he was able to appreciate what she was and what she represented to Hollywood. And yet…ah, Hannibal would never understand it. Charlie Chaplin burnt reels of footage he wasn't pleased with, as if enough films hadn't been burnt and snuffed out already, most of the greats from those days weren't even remembered today and never would be, because all their works were destroyed, in fires, from decay, from age, from melting down the film prints for their silver content to reuse, but most of all, destroyed by willful human hands, who saw no point in preservation, because it was inconvenient, a matter of storage space, a matter of money, a matter of damn the old and bring in the new, further proof of just how disrespectable the industry had always been. But this woman here with the trademark curls in her hair, she had also wished all of her own films destroyed pending her death, why? She thought the public wouldn't care about her once she left this mortal coil, maybe she had been right, but she was also wrong. She hadn't been forgotten, the world still remembered her, still _needed_ her. Still _needed_ all of them, where today they were pushed aside and ignored to make way for newer and supposedly 'better' things, these were the ones that the world could not afford to forget, something had to be done so the world would not forget anymore of them than had already happened over the course of 60 years.

For someone like Hannibal who had grown up with his roots in Hollywood and in the movies and all the magic that went into making them, to consider all that had been lost and who all had been forgotten, to him it was just about as unacceptable, and as painful, as snuffing out a very life in itself. Growing up watching them in the local movie houses, they had been very much alive, and as such they had brought the audiences to life; they stirred up actual raw emotion and made the people feel something, something Hollywood seemed to be avoiding now, lest they offend or upset the wrong people. No, some greats may come through the cracks now and then, but they'd never see genius again as he had seen so many times as a boy.

What was it that Mack Sennett was supposed to have said? _"What has become of laughter? There used to be so much of it."_ _So_ much of it, in a time when you worked without a script, you had no union crew, you just got your actors, a camera, went driving to a choice location, started filming, and all it cost you was the price of the gasoline to drive there, and you could churn out a short that was more successful than the feature film it opened for.

* * *

Hannibal was drawn out of his thoughts, out of the memories of one week ago, two weeks ago at his apartment recuperating, a lifetime ago in the movie houses, drawn back, by somebody calling his name. He came back to the here and now and saw that people were around now, getting ready to start shooting for the Aquamaniac movie. And _here_ came the director, and oh boy Hannibal knew _that_ look. At any other time it might be amusing.

"Johnny, what's the matter with you? Why aren't you in costume yet? We start shooting in 15 minutes, and we've _got_ to get this done before we lose the light. Now go on and get your suit on."

Hannibal looked around the set where they'd be shooting the lake scenes, he saw the people, he saw the cameras in place, he saw everything and everyone there, and for the first time in a long time, he thought about what it all meant to him. He thought about this industry and what it used to mean and what it meant now, and for the first time in a long time, even more than usual for a fugitive wanted by his own country, he was starting to feel _extremely_ disillusioned with the whole thing. He turned back to the director and said simply, "No, Sy."

"What?" the director looked like he'd heard wrong.

Hannibal shook his head and told the man, "No, I'm not getting into the costume and I'm not doing this scene…in fact…" he was practically beaming as he said, "I quit."

"What!?"

Hannibal was grinning his usual troublesome grin, and he said to the director, "You don't get to fire me this time, _this_ time, I _quit_."

And just like that, Hannibal Smith walked off the set and left the studio, grinning to himself from ear to ear. It was now 6 A.M. and his schedule for the day was cleared up, he decided he'd knock around the city for a while and then go find the others. It was a beautiful day in the city of Los Angeles, and he had a plan.


	2. Chapter 2

Out of the four members of the A-Team, Hannibal was generally the first one up, went with the territory of working in the movie industry, unless you were Frank Sinatra. He'd gotten used to it long before now and spent the early hours of the morning walking along the streets, seeing everything as if for the first time. Nothing could ever blot out the memories of all the years he spent growing up, walking these same streets, remembering what was there once upon a time and what was not, but for some reason this morning, he saw his surroundings as if he had just stepped out of a fog.

Along his way, Hannibal came to a brief stop outside of an electronics shop that had about 20 TVs stacked together and they were all showing the same thing. And what it seemed to be showing was a new music video on MTV, well maybe not _so_ new, he knew it well enough to know it was Queen, and he also knew it well enough to know that irony of ironies they were singing about the lost treasure of the radio, in between clips used of the silent movie 'Metropolis'. Irony _indeed_, and what Hannibal found funny, and sad at the same time, was how some of the lyrics to the song could also apply to the old films he'd grown up on. Now _there_ was irony. Hannibal scratched his head and continued to walk on as the day slowly got started for the rest of the city.

Around 8 o' clock he gave B.A. a call. It was Saturday, B.A. wasn't working at the daycare center today. All the same, the Sergeant was none too thrilled at having to come and pick Hannibal up, especially when he found out why.

"Hannibal, this is the worst plan you _ever_ had," B.A. told him.

"Not true," Hannibal leaned back in his seat, "I've had plenty of worse ones. This is just going to be fun."

"I doubt it," B.A. said.

"You know what your problem is, B.A.?"

"I'm looking at it," he told Hannibal.

"You look on the dark side of everything," Hannibal said, ignoring B.A.'s previous statement, and suddenly recalling a line of dialogue from a movie he'd seen as a kid, added, "You don't happen to have any Russian blood in you, do you?"

"Hey sucker, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh…nothing," Hannibal snickered to himself. He pulled himself together and said to B.A., "Trust me, B.A., this plan's gonna come off without a hitch."

"What do we gotta get Faceman and that crazy fool Murdock for?" B.A. asked.

"What can I say, B.A.?" Hannibal shrugged, "I've got a feeling about today."

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled to himself.

* * *

As luck would have it, they didn't need to break Murdock out of the V.A. this time, he was staying over with Face again. And as better luck would have it, they were both standing on the front sidewalk outside of the high rise Face was currently staying at. It was too soon to tell from the distance, but it looked like Murdock was playing hopscotch, and it was not too soon to tell Face was standing back and leaning against a tree, watching Murdock and looking less than amused. B.A. pulled the van up at the curb and Hannibal leaned out the window and saw Murdock had apparently gotten his hands on some sidewalk chalk and drawn large insects on the pavement and was stomping them.

"Harder, Murdock, I don't think they're dead yet," he called over to the pilot.

"Hey Hannibal!" Murdock called back as the two men saw the van at the curb and walked out to meet them.

"You guys are up early for a Saturday," Hannibal observed as he half turned in his seat and folded his arms over the window slot in the door.

"Yeah well," Face answered unenthusiastically, "That's to be expected, isn't it? Especially when somebody wakes you up at 5 A.M. with the television's volume turned up _all the way_."

"5 A.M. on a Saturday morning's cartoons, Face," Hannibal said, "You mean to tell me after all this time you haven't gotten immune to the Looney Tunes theme?"

"_What_ Looney Tunes?" Face asked, "I'm talking about those new _action_ cartoons, 5 A.M., volume at top level of machine guns, hand grenades, tanks, choppers, dynamite, you name it."

"And you've been up ever since?" Hannibal inquired.

"Yeah," Face answered shortly.

"Huh, wish I knew," Hannibal said, "I would've been here sooner."

"What's up, Colonel?" Murdock asked, "We got a new client to go meet?"

"No," Hannibal shook his head.

"No," Face repeated in dread, "Then that must mean Lynch is onto us again, right?"

"Not as far as I know," Hannibal said.

"So what's up?" Face asked.

"Can't a guy stop by and say 'hi'?" Hannibal asked.

"A normal person could, Hannibal, but we _know_ you," Face said, "So what's up?"

Hannibal just flashed that old familiar booby trap of a grin that always set Face on edge.

"Oh no," Face whined, "I can already tell I'm not going to like it."

Hannibal pointed a finger in the Lieutenant's face and said to him, just barely containing himself, "That, might very well be par for the course, Face. Get in you two, I've got a plan."

Face and Murdock looked at each other and mutually shrugged, but did as they were told, and once they were in the back, Hannibal had B.A. take off, and B.A. seemed to already know where they were going because Face noted Hannibal didn't have to tell him.

"So what's this brilliant plant you've got, Hannibal?" he asked.

"I was just thinking," the Colonel said as he bit down on a new cigar and lit it, "How long has it been exactly since Lynch _was_ after us?"

"He's _always_ after us, Hannibal," Murdock said.

"I know," Hannibal clapped the lid on his lighter, "But when was the last time he actually gave in to a chase?"

"A couple weeks ago, why?" Face asked, "Things have been nice and quiet around here since then."

"I know, maybe a little _too_ quiet," Hannibal told his men, "He's probably working out some new lead to come after us, and for once I want to be able to get the drop on _him_."

"You mean _us_ chase the _army_ around for a change?" Murdock asked.

"Why not?" Hannibal asked, "Might be fun, don't you think?"

"Hannibal definitely on the jazz today," B.A. grunted.

"You've got to be crazy, Hannibal," Face said.

"I _like_ it," Murdock said, wide-eyed and kooky as usual.

"You would," B.A. grumbled.

"B.A., why did you _ever_ agree to go along with this?" Face asked.

"Because I told him if he didn't," Hannibal addressed the two in the back of the van, "We're all going to be running the obstacle course again."

"Aw man…well I hope you know what you're getting us into, Hannibal," Face sounded apprehensive about the whole thing.

"I've got a fairly decent idea," Hannibal responded.

"You what?" Face asked. He turned to Murdock and said, "Would you do me a favor and knock me out? I don't think I want to be conscious when this happens."

* * *

"Oh boy Hannibal, you _really_ did it this time," Face said, straining to be heard over the sirens blaring not too far behind them.

"You think so?" Hannibal replied as they all rocked from side to side in their seats as the van sped down a bumpy road.

"Have to admit ol' Lynch looked like he was cleared for takeoff when he saw you," Murdock said over a fit of giggles.

Face glimpsed up at the rear view mirror and groaned, "They're gaining on us, this is it, this time they're really gonna do it. We are going to _die_, and then we're going back to Fort Bragg."

"You worry too much, Face," Hannibal told him.

Face considered that at this very moment they were careening along at 70 miles an hour with half a dozen MP cars right behind them, and _he_ was currently stuck between a mental patient who acted like he was on a ride at the amusement park and a leader with an apparently _large_ screw loose and moaned, saying only, "I feel sick."

"Step on it, B.A.," Hannibal said, "We've got to take the shortcut to get to the studio lot."

B.A. grunted and remarked, "Some shortcut, Hannibal."

"Come on, I know this schedule like the back of my hand," he said.

"I've heard that one before _too_," B.A. reminded him, "Last time the back of your hand led to a dead end when they moved the set around."

"Why would you want to?" Murdock asked.

Hannibal tilted his head back, "How's that, Murdock?"

"Why would you _want_ to know what the back of your hand looks like?"

"Hannibal," Face spoke up, "You better be right about the timing on this, if we get killed I'm never speaking to you again."

"I can live with that," Hannibal replied with a chuckle. He took another look at the parade in the side mirror and told the Sergeant, "Floor it, B.A.!"

"Hang on!"

B.A. buried the accelerator to the floor and the van reached its maximum speed and got far enough ahead of the MPs to just make it over the railroad tracks, a split second before a freight train with about 80 cars attached to it passed by, currently jamming up Lynch and the MPs.

Murdock was leaning out the window on his side howling like he was manning a plane 10,000 feet in the air, "Man, did you see that? We _just_ missed it!"

"Stop this thing, I want to get off," Face said, sounding sick.

"No time," Hannibal told him, "We've got to get to the studio lot."

"What _for_?" Face asked.

"I got a good look at the second half of the Aquamaniac script for the new movie," Hannibal said, "They're going to try and spice things up by putting in a natural disaster sequence when he rises up to attack the beachgoers."

"What _kind_ of natural disaster?" Face asked skeptically.

"I think a monsoon," Hannibal said.

"Ah!" Face feigned enthusiasm, and then flatly asked, "So what?"

"Face," Hannibal turned to look at him, "How do you create a wind storm sequence in a movie?"

"Airplane propellers!" Murdock chimed in, "_Big_ airplanes."

"Hey Murdock," B.A. warned him, "You better forget about that, we ain't flying."

"Well, that's right _sometimes_," Hannibal told the pilot, "But most of the time they rely on wind machines to create that deadly force."

"And?" Face asked cluelessly.

"And there are 6 such machines set up at the lake for the monsoon effect," Hannibal said, "I saw them getting set up when I walked off this morning."

"Isn't that a little excessive?" Face asked him.

"Well come on, Face," Hannibal said to him, "They're trying for realism here."

"Realism?" Face repeated, "Hannibal, remember the character _you_ played?"

"So what?" Murdock asked.

"Everybody's off the set _now_, meaning we can get to the fans ourselves without any trouble," Hannibal said.

"Oh, I get it," Murdock said.

"Me too," B.A. added, "But I don't think I like it."

Hannibal sat back in his seat and told the Sergeant, "Step on it, B.A., it won't be long before Lynch catches up with us."

"It's early," Face noted from his watch, "What makes you think nobody's going to be on the lot?"

"They do an early lunch," Hannibal said, "Besides, they've already lost the light for the early morning shots, they won't be needing it again until this afternoon when everything's weighted down for the monsoon."

"Nothing's weighted do-Hannibal you realize that's going to destroy everything," Face said.

"So what?" Hannibal asked, "Just another addition to the endless expenses the Army is forced to pay in recompenses to the civilians whose private property gets smashed up, torn up and blown up in the name of chasing us."

"Boy you really got this all planned out, don't you, Hannibal?" Face dryly asked.

"Pretty much," Hannibal said as he reached down into a bag he'd stashed under his seat and pulled out a small video camera.

"Now what in the world's _that_ for?" Face asked confusedly.

"I want to catch this moment for posterity," Hannibal said slyly.

Face slapped his cheek and groaned, "Oh brother."

They pulled up at the movie lot and as Hannibal had said, nobody was there, and all the equipment was left set up, including six huge wind machines. Hannibal advised B.A. to pull the van up in the opposite direction so when the machines kicked on, the force wouldn't push the van back.

"What do they use to run these things?" Face asked as they got out of the van.

"In the 20s they hooked them up to Liberty motors," Hannibal said.

"Those are used _in_ airplanes," Murdock noted.

"Right," Hannibal replied, "I don't know what type they use now, but whatever it is, they still _work_, let's get them turned around, and then turn them on."

"You're not serious, Hannibal!" Face said.

"Sure I am," Hannibal answered with an amused smirk on his face. It took a lot of doing but they managed to get the six fans and their accompanying engines turned to face away from the lake and towards the road Lynch would be arriving on. Then Hannibal said to the pilot, "Murdock, you get them on, and you stay out of sight, Lynch still doesn't know you're with us and I'm for keeping it that way."

"Okey-dokey, Colonel," Murdock saluted and ran off to start the fans.

"Hannibal," Face jabbed Hannibal in the shoulder, "Once these things are on…how strong of a wind is that going to be?"

Hannibal just grinned at him and answered, "You'll find out soon enough, Face."

"Ehh," Face turned to B.A. and said, "I'm really getting tired of hearing stuff like that."

One wind machine started up. The gusts were strong but not enough to do any actual damage, just to make it slightly difficult to stand straight. Face plugged a finger in one ear to block out the deafening roar of the wind _and_ the engine. Five more of these to go? He wouldn't have any hearing left.

"Here they come!" Face strained to be heard over the wind as he saw the MP cars coming their way.

Hannibal signaled for them to head out of the line of fire, and gave the camera to Face to start recording. Face didn't get it, but as usual he did as he was told. Hannibal walked on out so the oncoming gusts didn't hit him as hard _and_ there was a chance of him hearing what Lynch had to say, not that he was really interested in what was on ol' fuzz lip's mind, but…

Behind him, the winds picked up, he heard two more motors roaring to life, it wouldn't take much now…

The MP cars had come to a stop about a hundred feet back, Lynch and one of his accompanying associates had gotten out of their car and walked on ahead, apparently the Colonel thought he could talk reason with _this_ Colonel. Showed what he knew.

"You're not getting away this time, Smith," Lynch said to him.

"You a betting man, Lynch?" Hannibal asked as he heard the fourth fan come to life and felt the gusts get stronger, "I wouldn't put money on that!"

Lynch managed to keep his composure and sternly told him, "Don't even think of trying, anything Smith."

Hannibal looked past the Colonel and saw half of the MPs had gotten out of their cars and had rifles aimed on him. Hannibal slowly raised his hands high above his head in a gesture of surrender.

"That's more like it," Lynch said with a small smirk.

Hannibal turned to the front again and looked at Lynch with the expression of a naughty schoolchild waiting for the teacher to unknowingly sit on a tack. Lynch noticed this, and it unnerved him, and that was noticeable too.

"What in the _world_ are you grinning at, Smith?" he asked.

Hannibal gave a quick wave of the hand in signal, and the other two wind machines roared to life. Hannibal turned and ran, ducked down and zigzagged around the path of the machines to avoid getting the brunt of the storming gusts. Lynch loudly expressed disbelief that Hannibal would so much as dare take off, and started after him, however Lynch did _not_ duck down and the full force of the 6 enormous fans pushed him clear back and knocked him down. Some of the MPs got back in their cars and tried to follow after the running Colonel, but as soon as they got in the machines' line of fire, the hurricane-ish gusts of fury proved strong enough to cause the sedans to roll backwards as well, also against the MPs' own will and despite the vehicles' own abilities to press forward.

Hannibal stayed close to the ground but it was impossible to escape the damaging winds that they had created. He felt himself being pushed back bit by bit as he hunkered down against the ground more and more, he could barely keep his eyes open because he felt like the winds would suck his eyeballs right out of his head. B.A. came to the rescue and grabbed Hannibal's hand and pulled him along, across and over and out of the line of the fans' fire. Behind them, anything of light weight was seized from the ground and blown through the air, the trees by the lake were losing hundreds of leaves from the gusts and some of the smaller branches snapped off and also got airborne. Then, the wind ripped through the larger parts of the trees and ripped off whole limbs, one of which promptly came down on and flatted the roofs of three MP cars, luckily their occupants had just bailed out before it happened.

Murdock joined the others as they scurried to the van, got in, and took the long way around the lake to get out of there, though they knew it was unlikely Lynch would be catching up to them anytime soon.

"If we hadn't turned those fans around," Face said, "The whole area would've been _flooded_, we would've had a _real_ monsoon on our hands."

From where he sat in the back, Murdock applauded slowly and said, "Beautiful work, Hannibal, I loved it, that was _brilliant_."

"Yeah," Hannibal seemed to revel in it, but added, "But we're not done yet."

"We're not?" Face asked.

"It'll take a while, but Lynch is going to get some more cars and some more MPs and he's going to be on us again," Hannibal told the others, "So we just have to figure out our next move."

"Next move?" Face repeated, and groaned, "I think I'm getting a headache."

"What else you got in mind, Colonel?" Murdock asked.

Hannibal grinned a large, troublesome, toothy grin and said, "You're gonna love it."


	3. Chapter 3

"No place to park, no place to park, no matter what time of the day it is in what part of the city it is there's never any place to park," Murdock said more to himself than the others as they had to go around a block for a third time because of that exact problem.

"We've already been around here three times," Face told Hannibal, "There's no place to park on this street."

"There's no place to park on _any_ side of the block," Hannibal corrected him, "Everybody must be on an early lunch hour."

"Where're we going anyway?" Face asked.

"Right now, in circles," Hannibal said.

"Technically we're going in squares," Murdock pointed out.

"I mean where are we trying to park to get into?" Face asked their leader.

"There's a restaurant back there," Hannibal pointed the way they'd just come, "I want to set up a business lunch with Jerry."

"Out _attorney_, Jerry?" Face asked.

"Our attorney, Jerry Eckworth, who's mentioned wanting to break into the film business," Hannibal said, "He's one of the great snakes in the world of entertainment law. I've got an idea I want to shoot him."

From the front seat, Murdock and Face could hear B.A. grumbling and growling about something.

"In English, B.A.?" Face asked.

"That camera you were filming Lynch with when we blew the MPs off our trail," B.A. said to Hannibal, "That's what that was about, wasn't it? _That's_ why you had us go and flush Lynch out and set him on us again, wasn't it?"

"B.A., I'm disappointed in you," Hannibal feigned a hurt tone, "That was merely a bonus."

"Well then?" Face asked.

"It won't take long," Hannibal told them, "That's not why I got you guys all together, what I think is…"

"Better hit it, B.A.," Face looked out his window, "There's a beat cop walking this way and he doesn't look happy."

"Do they ever?" Murdock asked as they all got thrown back against their seats as the van picked up speed and turned the corner.

"So now what?" Face asked Hannibal, "That traffic's not going to clear anytime soon."

"Probably not," Hannibal replied in feigned defeat, "I guess we'll just have to take a rain check on that. Oh well…"

B.A. kept his eyes on the road ahead and saw a couple cars cut across two lanes of traffic and head straight at them, he jerked the wheel to the right and they swerved out of the way and rounded another corner. Hannibal hit his head against the frame on the door on his side, Face and Murdock smashed into each other in the back, and Murdock leaned out his window and called out, "Crazy Sunday drivers! It's only Saturday!"

"B.A., watch out!" Face pointed to a jaywalker dead ahead.

B.A. jerked the steering wheel again and they whipped around another corner.

"Can you just imagine living in states where they _don't_ practice Pedestrian Polo?" Hannibal asked his Lieutenant.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Face said, "We're just right back where we started."

And indeed they were, back on the same street with the same filled to capacity block where there was absolutely no place to park, and that same cop who eyed their van skeptically and started towards them again, so once again B.A. floored it and they were out of there.

"I feel like a gerbil spinning in his wheel," Murdock said more to himself than to others, "Run and run and run all day and never get anywhere."

"Turn off, B.A.," Hannibal said, "Let's get on another road where we won't be getting the evil eye from the Keystone Cops."

He did, but things didn't get much easier, they wound up swerving and weaving and bobbing between other cars just to avoid hitting anyone.

"I _hate_ traffic jams," Face whined.

Hannibal leaned out his window. "Looks like an accident up ahead, turn us off on another street."

"Boy this is a busy day," Murdock noted.

They turned off onto the next street, but still couldn't get away from the traffic. B.A. hit the brakes to avoid smashing into the convertible ahead of them that had unexpectedly stopped, but it wasn't soon enough to avoid bumping into it, and the driver took notice. He stormed out of his car and walked around towards the van and looked fit to be tied. Even the sight of the van's immense driver wasn't enough to cool his lava. He was of regular build, somewhere in his 30s, looked plenty mean and about as smart as a mule; dressed in a dirty cutoff shirt, faded blue jeans, work boots, and a grungy baseball cap. He was screaming and shaking his fist, even as all four members of the A-Team got out and he realized he was outnumbered, he didn't care. There wasn't any talking sense into him, in fact they couldn't even get a word in edgewise, the man just flustered and fumed about them hitting his car, and he summed it up by bringing his foot up and kicking out one of the van's headlights. B.A. slowly looked up from the busted light to the sucker who had done it, and now _he_ was fuming.

"You're gonna wish you hadn't done that," Murdock said, slowly inching away.

"You know, two can play at that game," Face said before B.A. could do something they'd all regret, and to make his point he went over to the other man's car and with a couple simple movements, tore the license plate off the back and walked back to the van waving it in the air like a banner.

"Now see," Face said to the man, and pointed to the broken headlight, "That's going to be about a $25 fine if a cop spots us, but _this_ my friend," he presented the license plate, "That will get you a date with a judge."

The man was fuming even more after that. He went over to the side of the A-Team van and in one unexpected move, ripped the side mirror right off. B.A.'s jaw dropped, but he quickly and unexpectedly recovered, and went over to the man's car, and quickly made it a permanent convertible by ripping the top off of it. After that, the man was furious, but somehow he had the presence of mind to know he'd just get killed if he actually tried to fight with the larger man, so he settled for going around to the side of the van and kicking the hubcap off one of the tires. B.A.'s response to that was to grab the driver side door on the man's car and rip it off.

"Wrap it up, B.A.," Hannibal glanced up the street, "The cops will be here soon asking questions."

"Fine," B.A. grabbed the side of the man's car and flipped it onto its top like a cheeseburger, and told the man, "That's for my van, sucker!" Then, to add insult to injury, or vice versa, B.A. yanked the man's baseball cap down over his eyes and punched him in the head a few times to knock him out.

"Nice, B.A., really _nice_," Face said as they collected the side mirror and hubcap, got back in the van and drove off.

"Hey fool, _nobody_ messes with my van," B.A. told him.

"It won't take much to repair the damage," Hannibal said in passing.

B.A. just growled lowly as they drove on.

After that, the traffic flow was very mundane, until they made a couple more turns, and saw a woman running out into the middle of a relatively empty street.

"Hey man!"

B.A. hit the brakes and swerved to the side, but still just missed hitting the woman, who stopped right in front of them, she put her hands on the edge of the van's hood to catch herself and started running again. She ran around the side of the van, so Face pushed the door open on his side and helped her in.

"Watch your step, Miss," he said.

"Abracadabra, presto, fettuccine, the lady vanishes," Murdock said as he looked out his window and realized the reason she was running was because there was a man running through the streets looking for her, and he looked like trouble.

"Problem, miss?" Hannibal asked as he turned in his seat to see her.

The woman was young, probably around 30, tall, thin, short blonde hair, dressed too fancily for this to be a casual outfit in a long, light blue skirt, a blue striped jacket, and a tight white blouse and a long dangly gold chain necklace, and she was huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf trying to catch her breath.

"Please," she gasped, "He's going to kill me."

"We'll see about that," Murdock said as he stood up in his seat, "Faceman, cover me, I'm going _up_ and out."

"Murdock, what're you," Face was cut off and his words were replaced by sudden surprised, and slightly pained grunts as Murdock stepped on Face's shoulders to push up through the sun roof of the van.

"What's he doing?" the woman asked as she watched Murdock climb out.

"I have a feeling we're all about to find out," Hannibal said as he sat back with a cigar in his hand.

Outside the van, the man was screaming, and storming around the street in front of the van looking for her. Up close, he proved to be a large and intimidating man who looked like he could skin a mountain lion in one quick move. He didn't see Murdock standing on the roof of the van above him, so Murdock took the initiative and jumped on the man's back and made himself at home. The thug went into a frenzy, spinning around frantically to throw Murdock off of him, but Murdock held on like he was riding a mechanical bull and howled ecstatically as he held on for the ride and took the opportunity to kick the man in his sides like a horse.

"Stay here," Hannibal told the woman as the three remaining members of the A-Team piled out of the van to help their pilot, though right now it was impossible to tell _who_ needed the help.

It was just as they came up that Murdock suddenly became airborne, getting tossed off the man's back and flying through the air, making a crash landing in the garbage cans at the curb. B.A. came up to the man and put him in a headlock, and while he had the man hunched over momentarily, Face grabbed the bottom of back of the guy's shirt and yanked it up so it came over his head when B.A. let go of him. With the thug temporarily blindfolded, Face punched him, B.A. clobbered him and Hannibal kicked him in the head and sent him sprawling back onto the pavement.

Unfortunately they wouldn't be getting away so easily this time. Several other men had seen what had happened from the time of the A-Team's assault on the man, and came over to retaliate on his behalf, thinking it a Good Samaritan thing to do. It quickly became an all-out melee and everybody was punching or getting punched by somebody else; of them all, B.A. was able to hold his own the best, but the others were being used to mop up the street in between the hits they got in. Murdock grabbed one man by the back of his pants in an attempt to restrain him, but instead when the man tried lunging away, Murdock ripped his pants clean off, and looked on in amusement as he saw the man standing in his shirt, shoes, and boxers.

"Now that's funny!" he said.

"So's this," the man said as he punched Murdock in the face and knocked him back.

Murdock punched him back and he fell against a couple others. By this time, more onlookers had taken it upon themselves to get involved in the scuffle, though who was fighting for which side by now was impossible to determine. Hannibal decided to take a cue from Murdock, he grabbed two handfuls of the back of another man's pants he was fighting with, and ripped them clear off, the noise was tremendous and he too stood in the middle of the street in his boxer shorts. This spread like a brushfire and everybody was ripping each other's pants off of each other, evidently there weren't too many jean wearers in the crowd. And before long, there were 30 pairs of ripped pants littering the street while the fight continued on. It was always good and fun, until the tables turned back to you; sometime during the fight, Hannibal, Face and Murdock all wound up on the receiving end of the exact same treatment and found themselves also standing around in their shoes, shirts, jackets, and their underwear, though they weren't left with much time to reflect on that because the fight was still going strong. B.A. was the only one nobody had managed to get the drop on in this way, and he was still KO'ing suckers left and right.

After a while the pandemonium started to die down ever so slightly so Face and Hannibal could see a couple of women had come to observe the fight, and didn't look entirely amused at the sight of 30 grown men in their underwear, the two of them included. Maybe there was something to be said about a man by what jockey shorts he wore, and if there was, there probably wasn't much to determine by Hannibal's light blue boxers or Face's white ones with red hearts on them, though there may have been some questions regarding Murdock continuing to jump around and fight with any goon left standing while dressed in his bomber jacket, his black sneakers, and his teddy bear boxer shorts. Face just gritted his teeth and blushed, Hannibal remained ever so casual and nonchalant and said reassuringly to the two women nearest them as he took out a new cigar, "Don't worry, ladies, we're professionals," though his comment did little to convince them of much of anything.

Murdock found another man in the bunch who still had his pants on, so he grabbed the olive green pants and ripped them off of the wearer, only to realize a second later the familiar military helmet the man was wearing. Panicking, he shoved the helmet down further and brought it down over the MP's eyes before he could see who had pantsed him.

"Hannibal!"

"Alright, men, let's get out of here," Hannibal said, "That's enough fun for one day."

The four of them tore out of there and made their way back to the van, where the door slid open and the woman stepped out, looking at them in awe.

"Wow," was all she had to say.

"And who might _you_ be?" Face asked, "Lois Lane, Vicki Vale?"

"Calamity Jane?" Murdock added.

"We can get around to the introductions later," Hannibal said as he opened the front passenger door, "Right now we've got to get out of here before the MPs catch us, _then_ we have to stop off somewhere that _you_," he addressed the woman, "Can step outside so we can get changed, and _then_ we'll exchange numbers and pictures. Now come on," he gave her a slight shove back into the backseat.

* * *

"By the way," Hannibal extended his hand to the woman seated behind him in the van as they drove along, now with everybody back in a pair of long pants, "We're the A-Team, what's your name?"

"I'm…wha…the A-Team?" the woman was in awe, "Are you serious?"

"As serious as can be given our present circumstances," Face said, "Our specialty is helping people in trouble and back there it definitely looked like you were in trouble. Would you care to fill us in, especially given what we just went through to help you?"

The woman recovered from her minor shock and explained, "I'm Linda Clawson, and that…that _thing_ that was chasing me…he was trying to kill me."

"We got that part," Hannibal told her, "What we don't get is _why_ was he trying to kill you?"

"You know the Breeze Haven?" she asked him.

Hannibal was drawing a blank.

"It's a hotel I run," she said, "A small one."

"Five bedrooms?" Hannibal offered jokingly.

"Five floors," Linda answered defensively.

"_That_ small, eh?" Face asked.

"My father started it back in the 30s," she told them, "Originally he opened it up to people who lost everything in the Depression, so they'd have a roof and a bed and a place to bathe and eat, then once the economy started booming again it became a real hotel, just not a massive one. I took over ownership and management of it a few years ago when he passed away. It's no way to get rich, but it's a good business and the people who come there love it."

"So what's the problem?" Hannibal asked.

"The problem is a man named Harry Mulligan," Linda explained, "He owns the Harrigan Hotel, _much_ bigger place, 30 floors."

"Can't be _too_ good," B.A. spoke up, "Faceman never scammed us a room _there_ before."

"What's the problem with this Harry Mulligan?" Hannibal asked.

Linda shrugged and threw her hands up in dismay, "You've got me, he made an offer to buy out my hotel, I told him no, and he's just been giving me trouble ever since."

"What kind of trouble?" Murdock asked.

"When you run a hotel as small as Breeze Haven," Linda explained, "Every customer counts, every day that they stay counts, every single member on the staff counts, he's driven off some of the guests, he's driven off several of the staff, at this rate he's going to run me out of business. He's also sabotaged stuff around the hotel, I'm digging out of pockets for the repairs to get everything up and running again because the damages outweigh the payout the insurance I have on the place is willing to give. I've just gotten the elevators fixed, the escalator running again, the dumbwaiters functioning."

"All that, eh?" Face asked.

"If he could've stolen the washers and dryers in the laundry room instead of just smashing them to bits, I'm sure he would've, as it is he had to leave them behind and destroy them too to try and prove his point. He offered again to buy, and I refused again, so he had that goon of his follow me to take care of his problem."

"Uh huh," Hannibal said, "And what exactly was he going to do when he caught up with you?"

"There's a bridge back the way we came, I'll let you figure it out," Linda told him sharply.

Hannibal turned in his seat to look at her and he asked her, "You got any money?"

"All tied up in the hotel," she said.

"Is the upkeep on the place great?" he asked.

"I try to keep an adequate number of staff on hand so it's not a problem," Linda explained, "All complying with the hotel's budget."

"Have much trouble with the place before this guy Mulligan came nosing around?" Hannibal inquired.

"No more than usual," she said, "Usual repairs and renovations and stuff."

"Okay," Hannibal slowly nodded, "Well, consider yourself as having hired the A-Team."

"What?" Linda asked, perplexed.

"What?" Face repeated, equally perplexed.

"Say hello to your new staff," Hannibal gestured to himself and to the others, "We'll help keep you in business and get down to the bottom of Mulligan's plan as well."

"I can't afford to pay you," Linda said humbly.

"Well if the accommodations all check out, maybe you can put us up in a room for the night sometime," Hannibal said, "Complimentary of course."

"If you can really help me," she told him, "You've got it."

"That settles that," Hannibal said, "Now where to?"

"For that matter, where's this Harrigan place in comparison?" Face asked.

"The Harrigan's a couple miles up from Breeze Haven," Linda explained, gesturing with her hand a general direction they needed to go, "You won't be able to miss either one."

"What all can you tell us about this sleaze ball?" Hannibal asked.

"All I know is he's got more money than the devil himself," she said, "So why he wants to buy out a 5 story hotel when he's got a 30 floor one doing clearly well for itself is beyond me."


	4. Chapter 4

"Well this is a very nice place you've got here, Linda," Face said once they'd gotten to the hotel and gotten a layout of the place, "But I just don't see what somebody else would want with it."

"That makes two of us," she said to him, "Let's see…I think I've shown you everything."

"Yeah, we've been to all five floors now," Face replied.

Linda was counting off on her fingers, "I've shown you around the kitchen, the laundry room, the hotel's exercise room, the game room…"

"Oh yeah about that," Face absently ran a hand up the side of his face and through his hair, "I don't know what to tell you but I'm not sure we're going to be able to get Murdock out of there the whole time we're here…You see he…he has some of his own arcade games at his room…but uh, they're not exactly plugged in…so I don't know what he'll do with ones that are actually turned on."

Linda looked at him strangely and asked, "He _what_?"

"Oh, well you see…" Face was starting to explain.

Murdock came running down the stairs from the second floor, into the lobby and up to Linda and asked her, "Is it alright if I bring my dog Billy in here?"

"I'm sorry, we have a no pets policy," she told Murdock.

Face leaned over towards her and murmured, "He doesn't _really_ have a dog, he just thinks he does." She turned to him questioningly and he shrugged and said, "You just have to go along with it."

She stared at Face for a long minute as if trying to determine if he was serious or not. She started to turn towards Murdock but looked back to Face as though she couldn't trust him after that, but she finally looked towards Murdock and asked, "Is he housebroken?"

"Oh you ain't gotta worry about that," Murdock told her, "I got him really well trained, he ain't gonna break up the house, or the hotel for that matter."

"I see," Linda remarked, not _really_ getting it.

B.A. entered the lobby and said to Linda, "Is that crazy fool going on about his invisible dog again?"

"Invisible?" Linda repeated, taken by surprise.

"B.A., you know I've told you a hundred times already," Murdock said, "Billy is not invisible."

"Right he ain't," B.A. told the pilot, "Because there ain't no dog!"

"That's a double negative," Murdock pointed out, "Meaning there _is_ a dog, meaning you _do_ see him."

"No I don't! Because there's nothing to see!" B.A. told Murdock, "And you better drop it real quick, Murdock. There ain't no dog!"

The next thing any of them heard was a high pitched barking sound, followed quickly by the unbelievable sight of a black satchel bag on the floor moving around on its own accord, from which the barking noises were emanating. Linda and Face gaped down at it with dropped jaws, B.A. just hit himself on the side of his head and grumbled, "No, it can't be! It just _can't_ be!"

The satchel made a mad dash all throughout the lobby and to the other ground floor rooms of the hotel, and Face, Murdock and Linda all took off in pursuit of the barking piece of luggage. It escaped them at every turn but they finally managed to catch it just before it reached the hotel kitchen. Face grabbed it by its handle and lifted it up, and almost didn't dare open lest he find something he didn't want to know about, but he did, he undid the top flap on the bag and…

Throwing it back he looked inside the satchel and took a tremendous sigh of relief to see a tiny Shih-Tzu was frantically trying to get out.

"That's _not_ Billy," Murdock said.

"I'm relieved," Linda remarked. She took the satchel from Face and checked the dog for a collar, and growled, "Oooohhh that Mr. Peterson."

"That a guest here?" Face asked as the three of them headed back to the lobby.

"Yes, an eccentric old kook who reserves a room on the 4th floor every month, he's always trying to sneak his dog in here to get around the hotel policy," she said as she tucked the dog under her arm, "I'll take care of this."

"You're not going to kick him out, are you?" Murdock asked. They'd returned to the lobby which was vacant, of everybody, even B.A. was now nowhere to be found.

"Certainly not," Linda explained as she put the pooch back in the bag and closed the flap on top, "I'm just going to take his satchel up to his room and leave it outside his door for him to find." And with that, she went over to the elevator.

Murdock turned to Face and told him, "I like her."

"You would," Face replied, looking around the lobby.

"Alright, guys," Hannibal said as he walked down the stairs holding two bellhop uniforms still on their hangers, "It took a little doing but I managed to find some uniforms that'll fit each of us."

Face looked at them skeptically and asked, "Why are there only _two_ of them?"

"Because you and I are going to be running everybody's luggage to their rooms," Hannibal explained, "Murdock is going to be manning the front desk so he won't need a uniform."

"What about B.A.?" Face asked.

"They don't have a uniform big enough to fit him," Hannibal explained as he shook his head, "So I'm going to run back to the film studio and raid their wardrobe section, I'm sure I can come up with something that'll look convincing, they've got costumes there for _every_ size. By the way, Face, what'd you find out about Mulligan?"

"Ah well," Face said, "He's been running the Harrigan hotel for about 10 years now, before that, _his_ father owned it, ran it for another 35, the business does well, he gets some rich clientele, a fair share of them shady characters, his own finances are very healthy, it's possible he came by it all through the hotel business alone but I wouldn't bet money on that. And he also happens to own a nice, big, beautiful, $200,000 mansion out in the middle of Beverly Hills, on a secluded area because his property alone takes up a square block, so he's got plenty of room for his Olympic swimming pool and tennis courts and you name it."

"A trust fund baby, is that it?" Hannibal asked.

"Seems so," Face said, "This guy's never had to worry about money a day in his life."

"Or worry about _anything_ a day in his life for that matter, and," Hannibal added, "He's probably had everything handed to him on a silver platter since the day he was born. Never told no, never denied anything, never faced with a single hardship or disappointment, never had anything get in his way and upset any plans of his."

"That'd be my guess," Face said, "The epitome spoiled brat. Some guys have all the luck."

"Is he married or happy?" Hannibal inquired.

"A strict bachelor," Face answered, "No permanent residents at his home, besides himself. That's one odd thing, all that money and no fulltime help."

"Well then," Hannibal smirked, "We're going to have to pay him a visit."

"But he's not there now, he's at the hotel," Face told him.

"Exactly," Hannibal replied.

Linda came down the stairs and told the men, "Okay, I've got that taken care of."

Hannibal went over to her, "Linda, do you think that Mulligan would send somebody else to this hotel today?"

"I wouldn't put anything past him," she said, "Especially once he finds out his hired thug didn't succeed in tossing me off that bridge."

"Okay, wait here a minute," Hannibal went to the front desk, picked up the phone and rang a room upstairs, "B.A., will you come down here for a minute? There's something I need to tell you."

A minute later, B.A. joined them in the lobby. "What's up, Hannibal?"

"B.A., I need you to stay here and protect Linda if Mulligan sends anymore muscle over," Hannibal said, gesturing with his cigar, then turning to Linda he said, "Now B.A. can't stay here taking up the lobby all day, he'll scare all the customers away." He ignored the murderous glare from his Sergeant and the low growl emanating from the man's closed mouth and added, "If Mulligan or any of his flunkies come in here, ring the fire alarm."

"Then he'll know it's no fire," Murdock said.

"You guys really _are_ something different, aren't you?" Linda asked.

"And B.A. will come to the rescue as always," Face added.

"Tell the guests that you're having the alarm checked, so not to panic if they hear it," Hannibal added.

"And what if there _is_ a fire?" she asked them.

"Serve all the guests free drinks," Murdock responded as he put on his jacket.

What're you going to do?" Linda asked Hannibal.

"We need to run out for a little bit and get a few things taken care of, and then we'll be back at full force," Hannibal told her, "Good luck."

"Good hunting," Face added jokingly as he followed behind Hannibal.

"Good grief," Murdock added as he followed after Face.

"My thoughts exactly," Linda said to herself as she folded her arms against her chest and shook her head.

* * *

"So remind me again _where_ we're going, Hannibal?" Face asked during the drive.

"We're going to Mr. Mulligan's home," Hannibal answered as he swerved to the side to change lanes.

"Why are we going there if he's not there?" Murdock asked.

"Can you think of a better time to go?" Hannibal asked the Captain, "We're going to pay his home a little visit and leave a little note for him."

"What's that?" Face asked.

"This," Murdock tilted his head back and did a vocal exercise, "That's a sharp note, here's a flat one," and tried again.

"This guy's clearly had everything handed to him all his life and never had anything get in his way. We're going to send a message to this guy that all sand castles come crumbling down when the tide comes in," Hannibal said, "All card houses fall, even $200,000 card castles out in the middle of Beverly Hills on a private piece of property, they all come tumbling down the exact same way like a set of dominoes."

"I like your style, Colonel," Murdock grinned.

"Yeah, but exactly _what_ are we going to do?" Face asked.

"We're going to teach him a little lesson in humility. First thing we do is take out the power," Hannibal said, "That way if he has surveillance set up and he probably does, he probably has booby traps set up to the same circuit for trespassers, that'll make our job that much easier."

They pulled up to the secluded piece of property and saw the place was in fact huge; a large 2-story house that looked like it was probably 20 rooms, large immaculately trimmed hedges growing all around the property, topiary trees, perfectly trimmed, perfectly green lawn, the works.

"This guy clearly cares very much about appearance," Face noted.

"Yeah," Hannibal said, "That's going to make this all the more fun."

"What's the plan?" Murdock asked.

"We're going to give Mr. Mulligan a little taste of what it's like to have somebody come in and smash up everything you own."

"That's a bit out there, even for _us_, don't you think, Hannibal?" Face asked.

"Perhaps," Hannibal replied, "But this guy seems plenty _out there_ himself," he replied.

They got out of the van and went around to where the power lines went down to his house, and with a couple nicely aimed rifle shots, solved that little problem.

"Gentlemen," Hannibal said as he swung the gate open, "Let the games begin. Anything goes, and everything _must_ go."

Hardly taking the time to actually look around and see anything, Murdock ran up to the front porch, and taking a knife out of his pocket, he stripped the 5, 5, 5 and 5 off the front of the house, then turned his knife on the doorbell, stripped it clear out of the wall and yanked the wires out after it. Face went around to a set of windows, opened them up, stepped in, and saw a phone on the desk right beside the window. He yanked the cord out of the receiver and threw the receiver out the window, then decided better, and tossed the rest of the phone out the window as well. Hannibal found a ladder to step on, and detached the porch lamp over the door, and gave it to Murdock, who was just going to smash it against the ground, but then thought better of it, and pitched it through the front window. From the inside, they heard a noise at the front door and saw it was Face taking the front door off its hinges, and then shoving it out onto the porch where it slid to the bottom of the stairs.

"Well this was a nice warm up," Hannibal said, "Now let's get to work!"

"Alright then, if anything goes, then here _we_ go," Face exclaimed.

Face went back to the van and dug out an axe they'd brought for the occasion, and set to work chopping down one of the topiary trees in the yard, while Murdock tore the trellis off the side of the house and shoved it through a closed window, shattering the panes into a million pieces. When one tree came down, Face started on another one, while Murdock found some smaller trees growing in the yard and just ripped them out with his hands. Once again, Hannibal had brought the camera with him, and stood back and filmed while he watched Face and Murdock go at it. Murdock took the axe from Face and used it to smash open the rest of the windows on the first floor. Face went around to where the gardener had left some of his tools and came up with a short handled spade, and set about digging random holes into the ground, not so much holes, just stabbing the ground, yanking out a patch of the dirt, and then moving to another part of the ground and repeating, until the whole yard looked like the 3 Stooges' golf course.

While he did that, Murdock climbed in one of the windows and proceeded to throw the lightweight furniture out of the window: chairs, lamps, inn tables, etc. Then another idea struck him and he disappeared into the house and reemerged at a window directly across from Face, and whistled to the Lieutenant just as he chucked a decorative Chinese vase out the window. Face picked up on the hint and swung the spade like a baseball bat, and hit the vase and smashed it to pieces. Murdock found a few more vases and pitched them out too, Face managing to hit every one that came at him. When Murdock ran out of vases, he went after the dishes in the kitchen and started throwing plates, bowls, saucers, glasses, anything breakable, straight out the window, Face swung, and swung, and swung, until he was dizzy from it.

"Terrific, alright, that's a wrap," Hannibal said as he shut off the camera, "That should be damages enough to match the damage Mulligan's boys did to Breeze Haven."

"Better than that," Face said as he tossed the shovel away, "When I was inside I found his desk where he keeps some readily available cash incase of an emergency." He reached inside his jacket and took out a wad of bills, "$10,000, that ought to recompense most of Linda's savings she had to take out for repairs."

"It's a start anyway," Hannibal told him, "Funnily enough, if he didn't come home to find his house destroyed, he'd probably never miss it."

"Where's Murdock?" Face asked as he looked around the yard.

He got his answer when they heard a noise from inside the house. Since there was no longer any front door, they could see Murdock wheeling an upright piano out the doorway, onto the porch, and then tipped it over and let it fall on the ground and smash. Then he picked up the discarded axe and chopped the middle open, and proceeded to gut the musical instrument and rip all the innards out, strewing severed wires left and right.

"Alright, _alright Murdock_!" Hannibal said as he went over to his Captain, "That's enough, at ease."

"Oh please, Colonel, I'm not finished yet," Murdock said as he stood over the piano, axe at his side like a walking stick, huffing and puffing.

"Sorry," Hannibal shook his head, "We still have to get to the wardrobe department and find a bellhop suit that'll fit B.A." He turned to his Lieutenant, "Face, did you get a note ready?"

"Yeah, right here," Face pulled out a piece of paper and read, " 'Quid pro quo, anymore incidents at Breeze Haven, and we _will_ be back to take it out of _your_ equity'."

"Of course you know he'll come right over after that," Murdock said.

"Hence the fire alarm," Hannibal replied.

* * *

"You three certainly were gone a long while," Linda noted when Hannibal, Face and Murdock returned to the hotel with B.A.'s suit in tow, "What kept you?"

"You don't want to know," Face told her.

"Okay, B.A., try this on," Hannibal held up the suit, "Should fit like a glove."

"And if anybody would know about that," Face murmured to Murdock.

"Hey Hannibal," B.A. grunted, "How come I gotta wear a monkey suit?"

"Well let's face it, B.A.," Face said, "They wouldn't exactly buy you as the hotel detective."

"Why not, sucker?" B.A. asked the Lieutenant.

"Ah…" Face was stuck.

"What's the problem, B.A.?" Hannibal asked, "All you'll be doing is showing people to their rooms and taking their luggage, we've done worse."

"Yeah, and all your plans have a 'worse' to them that you can't ever see coming, then we get hit with it," B.A. reminded him.

"Oh you're being ridiculous," Hannibal said dismissively, and to Linda he asked, "Where's your phone?"

"Over there," Linda pointed to the front desk, "Why?"

"I need to make a call," Hannibal answered as he headed over to the desk.

"Who's he calling?" Linda asked Face.

Face just shrugged, though he had a good idea.

Hannibal swung his legs over the desk and made himself at home behind it and picked up the phone and dialed the Harrigan hotel, taking no precautions since he knew the last thing Mulligan would anticipate would be a call from Breeze Haven, therefore he wouldn't bother having his line tapped for any incoming calls.

"_Harrigan Hotel, how may I help you?"_

"I want to speak to your boss," Hannibal said, just gambling that the man's voice on the other end of the line _wasn't_ Mulligan.

"_One moment please."_

Hannibal rapped his fingertips on the counter in some little tune as he waited.

"_Hello, this is Harry Mulligan speaking."_

"Hey Harry, how's tricks?" Hannibal asked nonchalantly.

"_I'm sorry, who is this?"_

"This is just a little friend advising you to take a sudden trip back home and check out what's happened to your glorious $200,000 piece of property."

He didn't wait for a response, he hung the receiver up and went back to the others chuckling.

"What's up, Hannibal?" Murdock asked.

"Mr. Harry Mulligan is leaving the Harrigan hotel," Hannibal explained.

"So?" Linda asked, not getting it.

"So," Hannibal told her, "While he's gone heading back to his home, _we_ are going to go over to his hotel and work our magic charm on some of _his_ customers."

"Hey Hannibal, can I bring Billy with us?" Murdock asked.

"I don't see why not," Hannibal replied.

"Hannibal," B.A. growled, "I warned you about encouraging him."

"Get your suit on, B.A.," Hannibal said as he and the others headed for the door, "While we're gone you're going to have to help Linda man things around here."

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled.

"I agree," Linda told him, "What's he got planned now?"

"I don't know," B.A. said to her, "But if I know Hannibal, it ain't gonna be good."

"For which side?" she asked.

"I don't know _that_ either," B.A. answered.


	5. Chapter 5

In contrast to Breeze Haven, the Harrigan Hotel was indeed something else entirely. As Linda had said, 30 stories tall, a very prominent looking place, the surrounding property was meticulously lined with topiary trees and shrubbery all perfectly trimmed to an exact measure so nothing overlapped anything else. In the side of the property beside the hotel was an Olympic size swimming pool where many of the guests were sitting back and soaking up the sun.

"Don't look now, Colonel," Murdock said as they got out of the van, "But I think the Face guy's falling in love."

"With who?" Hannibal asked.

"Not who, what," Murdock said.

Hannibal turned and saw what Murdock was talking about, Face was taking in the scenery like he was a starving man gazing at a rib roast dinner.

"Face," Hannibal said.

The Lieutenant's eyes just lit up as he saw the 30-floor hotel and saw in it, a phoenix, a paragon, a…

"Face!"

"Do you have any idea what a place like this could rake in?" Face asked, "Once Mulligan's in prison he's not going to have any ties to the profits."

"Assuming he _does_ go to prison, Face," Hannibal reminded him, "Assuming we don't just merely run him out of business and put him in financial ruin, which for him might be even worse than prison."

Now that they were actually here and got to see the place in all its glory, Face almost hated what they'd set out here to do, but, a job was a job. They went in the front revolving door and got into the lobby, Face about strained his neck looking up to see the exquisite décor of crystal chandeliers and priceless artwork on the walls. It was also worth noting, Hannibal thought, that like the Breeze Haven, there were 3 methods of traveling upstairs from the ground floor: the stairs, the elevators, and a set of escalators, in this large hotel it might've seemed a bit more appropriate, there was definitely enough traffic to accommodate all three, but something was missing. The place was all dazzle and flash, no heart, Breeze Haven might've seemed out of place and lopsided and outdated and obsolete compared to this place, but it was a close knit business. The guests back there knew everybody and everybody knew them, and the hotel was like a home for everybody who came. This, this was pure, cold, business, all formalities and airs, a card castle in the sky just about to come crashing down. For looks, for appearances, this place had everything going, but in the short time they'd taken Linda's case, he'd gotten a good impression of how her guests were treated in comparison, and given a choice between the two he'd rather stay there if he were a paying customer.

"Linda was right," Hannibal said as he pinched out his cigar and put it away for later, "This guy's got more money than Satan himself, and now it's our job to help relieve him of some of it." He looked to his Captain, and to his Lieutenant, and told them, "Let's go to work, men."

They found the closet where the staff kept their uniforms and found three that more or less fit them, then they split up and gave the entire hotel a very quick and very brief onceover. Once they figured out where everything they needed to know about was, they retreated back down to the ground floor to go to work. Face went to the front where a woman was checking in and said to her, "Good day, Miss, I'll show you to your room and may I take your bags?"

"I haven't any bags," the 30-something bombshell told him.

"No bags?" Face repeated, "That's alright, we'll get you some," and he promptly stole two from another woman who was checking in, and had the first woman follow him to the elevator.

Just as the elevator doors were closing, the second woman, a taller, larger, haughtier woman in a fur stole and bright jewels, realized what had happened and she stopped Murdock as he was passing and exclaimed, "That woman stole my bags!"

"I know, but she had none of her own," Murdock replied, "How many did she take?"

"Two!"

"Two, eh?" Murdock asked, "Don't worry, we'll get you _four_ more."

"This is _most_ unusual!" the woman told him.

"I know, isn't it great?" Murdock asked with a sparkle in his wide eyes and a big grin on his face.

"I'm sorry, Madam," Hannibal said to the older white haired woman he gently escorted away from the escalator, "But we've been having some technical problems with the escalators and we're going to be doing some maintenance work on them."

"I understand," the woman said as Hannibal walked her over to the elevator and put her in a car, "Thank you, young man."

Hannibal grinned at her, and once the door was closed he went over to Murdock and told him, "Find out where the tools are, I'm going to fix that escalator so the next person who uses it has a nasty little surprise."

"Right-o, Colonel!" Murdock saluted and took off.

Hannibal just smirked to himself and reached for a new cigar, they'd only been in action for 5 minutes and already they were turning this hotel on its ear. He wondered how many customers they could drive off before Mulligan got _back_ there?

* * *

Hannibal was not wont for giving in to fits of paranoia, but he checked in with B.A. at Breeze Haven every 15 minutes to make sure nothing had gone wrong, so far, so good. Mulligan must've been tearing what was left of his house apart with a fine tooth comb to figure out what was actually missing, if anything. So far the three of them had had a very active afternoon. By his own count, though he wasn't sure since he'd been making some minor adjustments to the escalators for the past half hour, Hannibal estimated they'd managed to drive off about 10 of the hotel's guests with their treatment. Now, if the rest of the hotel staff had been on hand, this might've been noticed, which was why Face made a point of scaring about half of the employees out with some half cocked story about the cops planning to raid the joint, and for everybody to lay low until tomorrow. That had driven them out of the hotel faster than if he'd announced the place was another Towering Inferno and burning down. With fewer of the regular faculty here, they had more freedom to do what they wanted when the guests showed up.

Aha, and here came another such sucker. Hannibal looked up from his work and got a look at the man, older, late 50s, early 60s maybe, graying hair, old man glasses, dark clothes, traveling with a suitcase, a set of golf clubs, and for some reason carrying a large old umbrella. As he checked in with Face at the front desk, Murdock came up to get his bags. Excitedly, Murdock swung the golf clubs back too fast and hit the man in the leg with them.

"Put those down!" he yelled at Murdock.

Murdock complied, directly onto the man's foot.

"Pick them up!" he said as he tossed his glasses down on the desk in frustration.

Murdock had taken the man's umbrella and smacked it down on the desk, smashing his glasses in the process. The man let out a sound of shock like a moose was being strangled.

"Look! Look!" he yelled at Murdock, to which the pilot craned his head back to see the ceiling above, "Look at my glasses!"

Murdock did, "They're broken."

"You clumsy fool!" the man yelled at Murdock, "I'll have your job for this."

"Aren't you a little _old_ for this type of work?" Murdock asked confidentially.

"What seems to be the problem here?" Face asked as he popped back in behind the desk.

The man showed his glasses and told Face, "Look at this!"

"Whose fault is that?" Face inquired.

Murdock pointed to the man, "It's his fault."

The man turned to Murdock and exclaimed, "WHAT!?"

"Well it's your own fault," Murdock told him, "If you'd never come here, you never would've broken them."

The man turned back to Face and told him, "I demand you fire this incompetent imbecile."

"Oh I _can't_ do that," Face shook his head.

The man leaned across the desk so he was practically head and head with Face and demanded to know, "And why not?"

Nonchalantly, Face explained, "He's our _best_ worker here."

"WHAT!?"

It was all Hannibal could do to restrain himself from busting a gut laughing. So far this was going off without a hitch.

The next thing Hannibal knew, he could hear the from desk telephone. He looked up from his work at the escalator and saw that Face was gone from the desk again, as was the irate guest, and it was just Murdock there.

"Answer that phone, Murdock," Hannibal said, "It might be B.A. calling."

Murdock went behind the desk to get the phone, but before he could answer it, a woman rang the bell at the desk.

"Answer that bell," Hannibal added.

"Which one do you want me to get first?" Murdock asked the Colonel.

Hannibal looked back towards the Captain and told him, "_Both_ of them."

He could tell by the low grumbling sounds Murdock was making that he wasn't amused. Hannibal heard both bells continue to ring as Murdock tried to decide which required his most immediate attention; fortunately for him Face came back right around that time so Murdock could check the woman in, and Face could get the call. The woman was furious about something and was pounding the palm of her hand down on the desk every few words to emphasize what she was trying to say. Hannibal couldn't resist looking and watched as Murdock started smacking his hand against the desk too, and started an improvised game of patty cake with her. She didn't respond kindly to that and smacked him upside the head before promptly walking away.

"Sorehead," Murdock muttered.

A minute later Face swung his legs over the front desk and went over to Hannibal and told him, "Got a call from a guy on the 10th floor, asked for room service, wants some ice water and he told us to put a rush on it."

"Oh he did, did he?" Hannibal asked as he got up and dusted off his clothes, "Well we're just going to have to give that guy _express_ delivery room service, let's get Murdock."

* * *

Busy times in this hotel. Hannibal didn't know what they were walking into but through the door to the room where they were delivering the ice water, they could hear a man and a woman arguing about something, it sounded like one of them was chasing the other one around the room.

"We gonna throw the water on him, Colonel?" Murdock asked.

"No, Murdock," Face rolled his eyes, "We're gonna throw the water away and hit him with the bottles."

Murdock turned to Face and said, "That might be _more_ effective."

Hannibal kicked the door open and stepped in just in time to get hit with something. He took a step back out of the room and turned to the others and they saw his face was pitch black.

"Oh boy, I'm glad B.A.'s not here," Face said, "He already didn't like your getup at that Las Vegas hotel, he sure _wouldn't_ be amused here."

"Am I bleeding?" Hannibal asked casually.

"Looks like ink," Murdock said as he touched Hannibal's cheek and saw his hand turn pitch black.

Hannibal pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped as much ink off of his face as he could manage, while inside the room the fighting continued.

"Alright, that does it," Hannibal was started to get worked up, "_This_ is war. Let's move in!"

The three of them stepped into the suite in their bellhop uniforms brandishing large seltzer bottles filled to the brim with ice cold water and saw the man of the room was torn between two women, one blonde in a blue dress and one brunette in a fiery red dress, who were both intent on beating the stuffing out of him. But all that came to a roaring halt when the three of them noticed the three bellhops wielding seltzer bottles standing in the room now.

"Alright!" Hannibal bellowed to get their attention, "Who ordered the ice water?"

The man sandwiched between the two women pounded his chest with both fists and answered, "_I_ did!"

Hannibal turned to Face and Murdock and told them, "Alright, guys, he asked for it, let him have it."

Synchronized, the three of them sprayed the man with the frigid water. At the first sign of moisture, the two women scurried away from him so they didn't get caught in the crossfire, though Hannibal turned and couldn't resist spraying one of them on her way out, before turning his attention back to the man.

Around his attempted drowning, the man sputtered and fumed and tried to threaten, but all he managed to get out was, "You dirty!" before the water muffled him out.

"Oh so the water's _dirty_ is it?" Hannibal asked cynically, "Well I'll have you know we wash it _twice_ a day!"

Hannibal was getting a good chuckle out of it, until something hit him in the back of the head. He spun around and saw the two women had come back, and they'd apparently brought half the dishes from the kitchen, they were both screaming at the men and throwing plates and cups and bowls at them. Hannibal dropped his bottle and moved to restrain the blonde woman, but the brunette grabbed a large decorative flower vase and threw it at him, and it shattered when it hit the wall behind him and just missed hitting either of them.

None of them even knew what was going on, all they knew was between the two women, and the man, everybody was grabbing breakable things and throwing them at everybody else. Hannibal dove under the bed to shield himself from the attack, and was promptly followed by Face.

"Well isn't this embarrassing?" Hannibal casually said to his Lieutenant, "Hiding under a bed and there's not even a husband in sight."

"Hey, where's Murdock?" Face asked.

They looked out and saw Murdock was catching most of what was being tossed at him and either throwing it back at the pitcher, or putting it aside where it couldn't break. But now the four corners of the room were perfectly divided into an X where everybody was throwing something at the person directly across from them.

"Where'd they get all the dishes from?" Face wanted to know.

"I don't know but you might as well get comfortable," Hannibal replied, "Looks like they could be at this for _hours_."

* * *

Once all the fragile things in the room were broken and the fireworks started to die down, Hannibal and Face tried to get the story out of the three people involved as to exactly _what_ was going on and in the process found out the man in question was officially with one woman, but had been caught seeing the other as well. Adding to the confusion, each woman thought they were _the_ woman in his life and until today had never known about one another.

"A guy tries pulling a trick like that," Face said, "He's lucky they didn't break anything on _him_."

"I'm sure it'll occur to them in time," Hannibal replied as they headed back down to the first floor, "In the meantime he's definitely going to pay on that housecleaning bill."

Face leaned over towards Hannibal and said to him, "Hannibal, have you been keeping track of the people coming in and out of this hotel?"

"Not particularly, should I?" he asked.

"There's definitely something crooked going on," Face said.

"I thought that was a given," Hannibal told him.

"I've been watching," Face said, "A lot of them are very notorious figures, it's like a meeting of the American Dons or something."

"Or this is just the new Lexington Hotel," Hannibal responded, "So who's the new Al Capone?"

"I don't know," Face shook his head, "I only know we're getting a lot of dangerous people under the same roof."

"Face, there are 30 roofs here," Hannibal commented.

"All I know is we've gotten lucky so far," Face said, "A lot of the people we've chased off haven't been anybody _too_ powerful or dangerous, a lot of them just a bunch of middle aged to elderly high rollers and extortionists and blackmailers, stuff like that, but if we don't watch it we're going to start getting on the bad side of leg breakers and hit men and the like."

"Face, you worry too much," Hannibal told him.

"You know," Face replied, "There are times I _wonder_ about that. How much longer are we going to stay here?"

"B.A. hasn't called yet, and the last I checked with him, everything was alright," Hannibal said, "Besides, I'd hate to leave before I get to see the escalator in action. I want Mulligan _back_ here and I want him to get on that thing and I'm going to turn it on at full speed."

Face looked at the Colonel and asked inquisitively, "What did you do?"

Hannibal just chuckled in response.


End file.
